Thursday, January 22, 2009

KNISH

There you were, innocent man, wandering down the street, when you smelled it. Hot fat! And a faint touch of....
Oy!
An echte yetser you have? Good! Let us deal with that.


Azoy:


THE KNISH

Dough:

Two cups plain flour.
Quarter cup water.
Two to four Tbs cooking oil or schmaltz.
Two eggs.
A pinch of salt.

In a steel bowl klop and klots di eyer with the oil and the water. Mix in the flour, adding more as needed and knead till you have a smooth dough, just barely tacky. Do not overwork the dough! You don’t want a tough crust.
Ball it, cover, and let it rest for about half an hour.

Filling:
One cup coarse mashed potatoes.
One onion, chopped.
One Tablespoon cooking oil.
Plenty of salt and pepper.
Chopped parsley.

In a frypan sauté the onion golden.
Mix the potato-mash, gilded onion, parsley, salt and pepper together. Adjust taste. A pinch nutmeg is good to add, but isn’t customary.

On a greased or floured surface roll out dough to a rectangle about ten by twenty inches, cut in half lengthwise, then cut each length of dough across into four.

Place a portion of the filling on each square, flatten it, and fold each square of dough over, taking the corners and pulling them over the filling to join in the center. A bit of whapping and tweaking to get nice square shapes is all it takes, if there’s a little dough flapping extra per knish, trim it with a paring knife. Or simply do as if making apple turnovers – who says you have to be perfect? Brush a little butter on top.
Bake thirty to forty minutes in the oven at 375 degrees (preheated) till nice.


[NOTE: 01/26/2009 - 'Rabid Political Feline' (a pseudonym!) followed the recipe over the weekend. And reports that the crust, well, meh. Alas. Meh. Filling nice, but crust.... meh. Well, I usually add more grease to the dough, reversing the proportions of water and grease (olive oil, animal fat, and butter mixed). But then, I LIKE IT GREASY (and I do not keep kosher). The effect, especially if using butter instead, is rather like a southern pie crust. Which, of course, is heretical. At the very least im gontzem apikorsish to da max. It is also a good idea to finish them by frying. Did I mention that I like greasy? It's probably heresy to mention that I eat mine with a dollop of chili-paste on the side........ ]


But, you could just go to Yonah Schimmel’s…..

That too is emmes a tayneg.

7 comments:

Dusty said...

Gilded onion.
Lovely image.
I am going to make these tonight for Shabbat dinner.
Now, if only I could come up with a main course.
Hmmm.
Got any good recipes for zebra?

Spiros said...

I like saying "knish". The sound somehow evokes "a wailing and a gnashing of teeth". Teeth will be provided for denture wearers, of course.
We are the Knights Who Say...Knish.

The back of the hill said...

Knish! Ober az nisht tove u' geshmek, efsher gekvetsh un' geshrei.

The back of the hill said...

Mir seinen knichten ver knish sogn?

The back of the hill said...

And, clearly by a process of linguistic 'devolution', the breathy part at the end got lost. Likewise the ancient anglo-saxon glottal at the beginning.

Knish > Knith > Knih > Kni > Ni.

Ve ar ze nits vot zeg NI.

But we still maintain the ancient pronunciation when we speak of our knish and kin.

Anonymous said...

Essentially a vegetarian murtabak. Try adding roast cumin seed and a little fenugreek.


And ghee. Plenty of. That's it.



---Grant Patel

Anonymous said...

"rabid political feline" ??????
I am deeply offended, mortally wounded , my kind sir.

Why, I've had ALL my shots!


Political Feline (rabies/distemper-free)

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